Thursday, May 30, 2013

FCBD REVIEWS 0001

﻿Courtesy of Bob Hoskins and my good friends at Stormwatch Comics in
West Berlin, New Jersey, I have all of the 2013 Free Comic Book Daygiveaways. As a supplement to the bloggy thing, I’ll be reviewingthem one by one.

Free Comic Book Day: Star Wars and Captain Midnight is one half ofa flip-comic from Dark Horse Comics. Flip it over and you get FreeComic Book Day: Avatar...the Last Airbender.

“The Assassination of Darth Vader” is an eight-page story by writerBrian Wood with artist Ryan Odagawa. Concerning political intriguewithin the Empire and an Imperial Star Destroyer, it makes good useof familiar Star Wars characters like Vader and Boba Fett. Whichcould lead a Star Wars fan into checking out Dark Horse’s many StarWars titles. That’s a good angle for a FCBD giveaway. A publisherwants to attract paying customers to his comics.

Digression. The inside front cover of this FCBD issue has a briefparagraph setting the stage for the Star Wars story. By way of ageneral comment, I find Dark Horse’s Star Wars somewhat confusing.I would recommend to this publisher that they devote more of theirStar Wars inside front covers to giving a new reader some sense ofwhat he or see is getting into. End digression.

Backing up the cover story is an eight-page Captain Midnight storyby Joshua Williamson with art by Pere Perez and Roger Robinson. Ifound the story quite readable and it gave just enough backgroundon the legendary hero and his current circumstances to get me intothe series. The story continues in Captain Midnight #1, which goeson sale in July. Again, this is a good use of the Free Comic BookDay event.

Flipping the book over, “Rebound” appears to be a flashback to theearly days of a young man I assume is the hero of Avatar...the LastAirbender. The eight-page story by Gene Luen Yang didn’t give mea true entry into that fictional world, though his writing and theRyan Hill art were of professional quality. I don’t see this sideof the FCBD book as being more than preaching to the converted. AnAvatar fan might see and, realizing there are Avatar comics, go insearch of them. I don’t think it would convince a non-Avatar fanto become interested in the series.